Times New Viking formed in Columbus, Ohio, in 2005, they released two records on Siltbreeze, before switching to Matador for their breakthrough album Rip It Off. A three-piece made up of Jared Phillips, Beth Murphy and Adam Elliot, they were ecstatic in their roughly hewn cuts of 120 second long pop music that abandoned what might be considered ‘production’ for off-key pop melody and missing or messed notes, but saved by the charm of immediacy and the ecstasy of abandon.

They were, ostensibly, part of that great boom of late-decade lo-fi retrogressives, yet Times New Viking never really wallowed in nostalgia for an idyllic pastiche of Americana and were instead propelled by a punk-fucking-rock strut and bluster that cam drenched in a sarcastic, slacker humour; the joyfully iconoclastic ‘Imagine Dead John Lennon’ off their second album Presents the Paisely Reich for example, or ‘My Head’ from Rip It Off, in which Beth sweetly sings the chorus of ‘we need more money ‘cos we need more drugs.”

So, after four albums drenched in the buzzes and hums of four-tracks and basement acoustics, they now find themselves on Wichita, releasing their fifth, Dancer Equired, and working in a real studio with an engineer. I recently caught up with them to talk about making money, fidelity and Fleetwood Mac.

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Ahead of their much anticipated performance at Friday’s Off Modern, Pseudo Nippon gives us a sneak preview of his new DVD that accompanies his debut album. Both will be available to buy on the night!

Chad VanGaalen is from Canada and he is about to release his fourth album. This is a track from it called ‘Peace on the Rise’ which he’s letting people download for free.

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Track by Death Grips – ‘Guillotine’.

Some people like pop music, I mean that’s fine, but if you’re up for something a little more challenging you can’t do much better than check out the work of Haxan Cloak at the minute. It’s the moniker currently being used by soundartist Bobby Krillic. The LP he’s just put out on Aurora Borealis is really kind of special. Droning soundscapes filled with chants and screeching strings that will nestle themselves deep within the recesses of your mind if you’ll let them. I mean they may take you to a dark place but it’ll certainly be interesting. Cinematic in scope and sound it’s work of menace and genius. He was kind enough to answer a few questions about his art.

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CYMBALS formed just under a year ago and have just released their first album Unlearn on our favourite little indie Tough Love. This is a pretty quick turnaround, especially for the strength of tracks here, where glorious simplicity belies their complexity of forms and the strength of their writing. Full of adolescent anguished wit, hyperactive guitar lines, house-piano and snapping 4/4 drum beats. I recently caught up with singer and guitarist Jack and drummer Sean (CYMBALS also includes keyboardist Dan) for a commemorative chat about twelve months of CYMBALS.

Hello CYMBALS! Let’s start at the beginning, how did you all meet and start playing?

Jack – Well Sean [drums] and me had met briefly at university, then when I moved to London a few years later we bumped into each other at Field Day festival and started playing music together once a week. Dan [keys] was a friend of my brother-in-law, and we started trying stuff out together, Talking Heads covers and stuff, but it was a bit darker before we did that Pavement cover and decided we needed to do music we could dance to.

You’ve been around less than a year and you’ve already released an album – it’s quite impressive to have got something together that quickly.

J – Yeah it’ll be a year in June. We really didn’t want to be precious and restricted. Some people spend years perfecting an album, or waiting for the perfect time to release it, but we just wanted to put out what we had so far, and then move on to the next songs. These songs, they sound like hits to us, and we’re really excited about what’s next.

You worked with Cal from D/R/U/G/S on the album right?

J – We had been in contact with them because of their remix of our song ‘Good Luck’ some months before and that really blew us away, we all just emailed them to say how much we loved it.

We wanted someone who mixed from the point of view of dance music; loud kick, compression etc. but what was really cool with Cal’s mixes was that he ‘got’ the limited, punk, side of the sound, like we basically don’t do any overdubs, it’s all live, and that was what we were trying to do, like a loose dance version of German house, like Pavement playing Ellen Alien.

Who else did you work with on the production?

J -The songs were recorded in a few different places, some in our practice space, some in a studio with Ash Workman who was co-producing the Metronomy album at the time. Ash had an input into a few of the songs, making ‘Summer Escaping’ faster and suggesting ideas for the new version of ‘I Don’t Know Why You Bother’. We sort of wrote the arrangement to ‘Half Ask’ in the studio while he was there, which I think he found a bit exasperating, but he was really awesome to work with over those days too – he really pushed us though, making us play to a click which is pretty hard for our music as Sean kind of learnt drums while being in CYMBALS, it was a bit of a nightmare.

Yeah I heard Sean had never played drums before CYMBALS, that’s crazy.

Sean – WelI I did pass Grade One snare drum aged 13, but I’ve not really played drums since. I actually turned up to the first CYMBALS practice hoping to play bass. I have zero technical ability, as Jack said I’m unable to record to a click, I can’t do fills, I struggle with anything that isn’t four-to-the-floor kick and the only time I get to practice is when we play together, but the others seem to like the shambolic-minimalism that results.

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Will Archer aka Slime has produced another music video evoking, or perhaps celebrating existntialism after the release of the beautifully simple video for Caffeine.

You can’t have any revolution without a musical soundtrack. So said Caroline Coon; painter, punk, protester and one-time manager of The Clash, and also Jarvis Cocker’s guest on his marvelous Sunday Service last week. One of the tracks she recommended and played out to the protesting youth was The Electrician from The Walker Brothers’ Nite Flights, an album containing a dark and peaceful revolution in terms of the workings of it’s band, as well as the content itself.

This 1978 release from The Walker Brothers was to be their last as a group. Change and splitting is within the album, which comprises of three sections or EPs, each brother penning and vocalizing their own.

Guitarist John Maus rounds up the record with four choir-backed and repetitive tracks and they’re good, notably the clapping and catchy Fire and Fury, whose disco strings wail on and out with a somewhat tamed ferocity. Percussionist Gary Leeds ends one side and begins the other with his two creations, Death of Romance and Den Haague and they’re enjoyable too. Both create their own nocturnal narratives with success. However, because they are preceded by Scott Engel’s (or Scott Walker’s) efforts, they are ultimately overshadowed. He begins the flight with four outstanding tracks and he’s never touched down since, nor allowed anyone to catch up. His lyrics, melodies, orchestration and composition all amount to what would have been one of the most mesmerizing EPs you would ever hope to come across. The songs are creepy, and its creepy how good they are, and how fresh they feel, like each revolutionary night.

Rest in peace John Maus, happy flying.

The Walker Brothers – The Electrician

Amazing video for My Panda Shall Fly‘s brand new track “Xerox” by Daniel Swan in collaboration with Soju Tanaka.